Ms Curran has rejected claims that her meeting with Ms Hirschfeld was a secret meeting;

“At no time have I ever said the meeting was coincidental.

While I believe the meeting was not official and informal, as soon as I became aware that it should have been considered an official meeting in answer to a written question, I corrected the Parliamentary record. This was a mistake.

The meeting was not a secret, and I regret that the meeting took place.”

“Carol had been to the gym, she was getting a coffee, they bumped into each other, in a cafe and had a conversation so it was hardly a secret meeting. I don’t have any concern.”

For a supposedly “secret” meeting, a cafe rendezvous seemed to lack most of the necessary ingredients for a covert political operation.

Perhaps Simon Bridges is aggrieved that Labour has lifted one of it’s own strategies and attempted to use it themselves. When it came to “informal meetings”, National’s former Dear Leader, John Key, was quite the expert.

Note that at first, Key denied meeting any representatives with Mediaworks. Two days later, he was forced to concede “running into” Impey at a “social event”. The issue of a government bail-out of Mediaworks was “briefly raised”.

But according to Key, the vacancy at the Government Communications Security Bureau was “not discussed”. Of course it wasn’t. Fletcher’s appointment three months later was a pure coincidence – right?

When it comes to dodgy deals done behind closed doors – or at “informal” events – nobody does it better that National.

And nobody weaseled out of being caught conducting secret informal “chance meetings” better than our own Teflon Don, whom Simon Bridges considered his hero;

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As fellow blogger, Martyn Bradbury said succinctly on this issue;

“The media focus on the insignificant and judge the Left at a threshold far higher than they ever held National to account.”

Labour will have to make more of an effort to avoid these prat-falls. Because unfortunately, Key used up the country’s entire supply of teflon for himself during his leadership tenure with all his personal, Party, and ministerial scandals.

Of which there were many.

***Updates***

28 March – 8.16am

On Radio NZ’s ‘Morning Report”, it was announced that Board Chairperson, Richard Griffin (and former advisor to Jim Bolger) advised National MP, Melissa Lee, that Carol Hirschfeld had resigned – before it was publicly announced.

Ms Lee said she was surprised by the resignation of Ms Hirschfeld, who she described as a “well respected journalist”, and was given notice of the move by RNZ chair Richard Griffin shortly before the announcement.

Was that appropriate?

Why did he discuss this with an Opposition MP?

Did he have Board permission to disclose this?

What other contacts does Griffin have with National?

The Curran-Hirschfeld event is beginning to create ever-widening ripples.